Cadence has stripped its Orcad PCB design software down to a baseline model that Cadence will license in a traditional manner and has worked with 24 companies to provide enhancements as plug in feature sets that users can opt to purchase in an open market place.

Cadence did not indicate whether this approach to buying Orcad would be lower cost than previously.

The interface to the Orcad baseline schematic capture software is standardized and open so that many companies can enter into the company creating feature sets if they think they can create value and make money. As with the Apple apps store business model, Cadence will act to approve the extensions, maintaining quality and making sure they don't crash the tool and will take a cut of the download price.

John Bruggeman, chief marketing officer at Cadence, said the development would foster a "faster and more market-driven product evolution."

"We will continue building and evolving the marketplace, with more apps and more content, to help ensure engineers can quickly find what they need, when they need it," said Josh Moore, senior product marketing manager at Cadence.

The OrCAD Capture Marketplace is closely aligned with the EDA360 vision and will become available by the end of June 2011. A video of the OrCAD Capture Marketplace can be seen on YouTube.

With so many "free" tools out there, it's in the best interest of the big-boys to modularize their software and allow easy "upgrades" to add features.. This will enable them to keep their installed base. Hopefully they will do it "right."